𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝑭𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒐 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝑭𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒍 𝑰𝒏𝒄.
with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and CASA San Miguel‘s Season 29 of the Pundaquit Festivals in partnership with UST RCCAH, CHED-NCCA Salikha, and Bahay Nakpil-Bautista Foundation.
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𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: Saturday 22 May 2021
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄: 3PM Manila Time
𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: CASA San Miguel Facebook page
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Select works for chamber ensemble by Julio Nakpil with arrangements for strings by 𝐆𝐀𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐙𝐀 and 𝐆𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐍 𝐀𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐀𝐒

Program Notes:

Julio Nakpil, Filipino composer, pianist and a revolutionary soldier, wrote music during the last decades of the nineteenth century. He was born in Quiapo, Manila on May 22, 1867 exactly 154 years ago. The period of the late nineteenth century was a most dynamic period in Philippine history. It was a time when the colony negotiated the entanglements of global modernity (i.e. expansion of capitalism, industrialization, secularism, and the spread of liberal and humanistic ideas and later a national revolution).

Julio Nakpil was a product of his times. He lived at the onset and spread of liberal ideas in the colony. The political turmoil and anomalous period of the brewing revolution and the growth of an emerging civil society and national consciousness undeniably influenced the political stance and musical ideas of this man.

Nakpil was the first liberal Filipino composer. In the course of his life as a musician, he was never part of a controlling institution. His creative works were clearly a result of his participation in civil society, producing works that circulated in the public sphere. His total output consisted of 23 piano compositions, 5 works for voice, 3 works for chamber ensemble, 4 band compositions and 5 orchestral works. At first creating music that hybridized Filipino sentiments to cosmopolitan salon music, his compositions signal the end to the devotion of depicting country scenes and objects in music. At first creating music that hybridized Filipino sentiments to cosmopolitan salon music, his compositions signal the end to the devotion of depicting country scenes and objects in music. His awakening to representing his emotions, feelings and sentiments on the cause of the revolution was a turning point in the history of Filipino composed music. He can be considered as the first liberal composer as he never was part of a controlling institution. His music were expressive of the sentiments of the Philippine revolution.

Despite this, Julio Nakpil has been marginalized, forgotten and deemed insignificant. There would be slight mention of him in history as a revolutionary, a member of the Katipunan who aided in our fight for freedom and the one who composed the ill-fated national anthem that Bonifacio commissioned. But Nakpil is much more than that.  He was an organic music intellectual who silently fought in the margins through his music that revolutionized the trajectory of the nation’s music development.

 1) Ilang-Ilang: Mazurka de salon, Ob. 5 (1890)

Ilang-Ilang, a mazurka de salon para piano, is considered the first published work of Nakpil said to have been printed in Madrid although the published copy is not extant. Nakpil rewrote this piece as part of his Producciones musicales dated 1894. The composition exhibits melodic gestures that evoke the local melodic writing idiom, particularly in its main theme. The kundiman-like depiction of the native flower is apparent, although the bravura style of the piece conforms to the prevailing European pianism of that time. The main melodic theme is unquestionably local. Recognizable is the resemblance of this particular melodic theme to the stylistic features of the cundiman, i.e., the resolution of the none chord tone to the 2^nd beat in a triple time, with waltz-like accompaniment that counters the more normative rhythmic syncopation on the 2^nd beat of a European mazurka.                                                                                                                             

2) Recuerdos de Cápiz: Habanera caracteristica, Ob. 8 (1891) À bella Srita Julia Gil

Nakpil’s most famous composition is the Recuerdos de Capiz. Quite noticeable was his perceptive incorporation of some Filipino musical elements in this work. For one, the main melodic motive of this piano piece carries close affinity with the famous Jocelynang Baliuag, the kundiman of the revolution. Intriguing is that Nakpil’s work predates the said cundiman which was dated 1896. Lighthearted and spirited, the musical work, a habanera caracteristica para piano depicts the bucolic and merry life in a rural Visayan province in central Philippines. A story has it that Julio went to Capiz with his mother and fell deeply infatuated with a young lass named Julita Gil to whom the piece was dedicated. The genteel, florid and arched melodic line becomes more prominent with the use of the characteristic habanera rhythm on the left hand. The piano work was published by a lithographic press in Paris in 1891. The piece reached six editions (with other editions done in Manila.)

3) Kundiman: Lakad-Tagalog, Ob. 15 (1892)

This piano piece composed in 1892, figures importantly in the history of Philippine music development as the first attempt to conceptualize and represent the folk kundiman as an organic musical work.  It predates Jocelynang Baliuag, which was believed to be the first composed kundiman, although its composer is not known and is dated 1896. Kundiman, as we know today, is a Tagalog love song in ¾ time that speaks of intense longing and unrequited love for the country or to a woman. All this run contrary to the kundiman of Nakpil. It is a piano work in 4/4 time with indication stating that it is a ‘Lakad Tagalog.’ Nakpil, no doubt, was familiar with the 19^th century kundiman which was danced. His use of the native language to describe the piece as a “Lakad Tagalog” (Tagalog step) makes clear that it is a song-dance genre. This is one of Nakpil’s first attempt in bringing a native genre in his compositions.

An analysis of its music, points that the melody was from the transcription of a kundiman done by Pedro Paterno published in Madrid in the year 1887. The first part is in d minor and the second started in Bb major its relative. The binary form in contrasting harmonic levels is an important stylistic characteristic of the kundiman as an art song. In relation to its melodic phrases, it usually ends on the second beat of the measure that is a resolution of a dissonance or the emblematic sigh in kundiman melodies. These stylistic nuances points that it is indeed a kundiman apart from its meter. It is clear that as early as 1892 the structural form of the kundiman has been conceived.

4) Amor Patrio

His Amor Patrio, Ob. 14, dedicated to Rizal was composed on August 4, 1893, when Nakpil became a member of Rizal’s La Liga Filipina while the national hero was still in exile in Dapitan. The text was based on the title of Rizal’s first published essay El amor patrio. The work, considered his first vocal composition, makes quite an unusual instrumentation which was scored for soprano, oboe and piano. The Spanish text of the song was from Rizal’s Canto de Maria Clara culled from his famous novel Noli Me Tangere which speaks of death as sweet if given for one’s own country.

5) Luz Poetica de la Aurora (Chamber Music)

By 1891, Nakpil’s creative output began to manifest traces of liberal ideas. This is manifested in his Luz Poetica de la Aurora, Ob.9 (Poetic light of Dawn) which signals a new phase in his creative musical writing style. This particular composition, metaphorically translated as “Dawn of Enlightenment,” commences with his apparent enlightenment motive: a dotted quarter note (or sometimes eighth-note) followed by two repeated sixteenth notes. He reiterates this clearly at the beginning of the composition. He would use this particular motive in most of his works that call forth his fight for freedom. This work might have been special for Nakpil as he wrote three different instrumental versions of it; one for solo piano (2-hands), another for 4-hands and the last is a chamber work for oboe, violin, cello, and piano.

6) Danse campestre: Habanera para concierto, Ob. 11a (1891) Al Sabio profesor austriaco Sr. Fernando

Composed in 1891, this habanera for piano was dedicated to the wise Austrian professor, Ferdinand Blumentritt, the scholar and most trusted foreign friend of Jose Rizal. It demonstrates that previous to his joining the La Liga Filipina Julio was already abreast with the Enlightenment and liberal ideas espoused by Rizal and other propagandists. It is not known why he titled the musical work “Danse Campestre.” Nakpil links this piece as a contestacion or a direct commentary to his “Recuerdos de Capiz.” As a city boy who lived in Quiapo in the heart of Manila, the young Nakpil was enamored by the bucolic charm of the rural Visayan. Noticeable is that the two compositions evoke simplicity, with the genteel and florid arched melody “grooving” against the habanera rhythm. To be performed is the original violin and piano arrangement of this piece.

7) Marangal na Dalit ng Katagalugan (Himno Nacional), Ob.20 (1897)

A mi querida Patria

During one of the encampments of the revolutionary soldiers in Balara, Katipunan Supremo Andres Bonifacio prompted Julio Nakpil to compose an himno nacional that will symbolize the embodiment of an imagined Filipino nation. Composed in November 1896, the Marangal na Dalit ng Katagalugan was formally submitted on the 27^th of January 1897. The composed-hymn was even mentioned in the Katipunan letters that were discovered at the Archivo General de Militar de Madrid dated February 13, 1897. In this letter, Bonifacio confirms the receipt of the copy of the hymn which Nakpil sent. The hymn was sung in Tanza, Cavite in May of 1898, in Biñan, Laguna and other towns. With this information, it demonstrates that this was the first anthem to symbolize the inchoate Filipino nation. The hymn creatively took on the Dalit, a native sung prayer as its form and not the usual marcha (march) that hails freedom of the nation from the Spanish colonizers.